


In the Empty Spaces

by 9_of_Clubs



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Black Panther Spoilers if you squint, Fitting together broken parts, For heroes there's always a loss, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Implied OT3 Beginnings, Killing Steve would really mess everyone up, M/M, Okay maybe a little comfort, Post Infinity War Speculation, picking up the pieces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 14:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs
Summary: In the wake of Steve's death, Bucky comes back to the Avengers Compound. Or - in grief only they can really understand, Tony and Bucky find themselves together.Tony’s shoulders tense, and his back straightens. He stares at Bucky and his fingers twitch, and Bucky knows he’s thinking of pulling out his glasses, hiding himself away. But Stark doesn’t, he just watches him, rife pain, hollowed fury, and so he doesn’t run either, gives back all of his glassy anger, all that winter, all those shatters. It doesn’t matter if Stark sees, it’s hard to imagine anything mattering anymore.





	In the Empty Spaces

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [En los Espacios Vacíos {In the Empty Spaces}](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13891941) by [Drakonov](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drakonov/pseuds/Drakonov)



The silence lingers long - and, of all places, he’s not sure why he’s come back here. There’s nothing for him here now, in the breathing silence of walls, in the immovable stillness of things, the structures that are whole instead of dust. Standing instead of fallen. Everything unchanged, the sun still rising. The soldier in him, that howls endless, always wants to savage it all down. And just now, there’s not enough of anything else to temper the desire, the blood in his veins agrees, hungers, the metal in his arm pleads.

But really. He wishes only, as he has so many times before, every part of him, from the set of his jaw to the clench of his fingers, to the cold, so cold, everything ice again, of everything else, from every last cell in his body, he wishes for death.

He wishes, here, on the other side of the end of the world, that everything had ceased. There hasn’t been enough of a self in him period to be selfish or selfless before, but in this, his first test, he fails to be the latter. Go back, be done, everything done. The ache in his ribs clenches, but not hard enough. He wishes something could shatter his bones, sever his arteries. 

Could he even die?

_ Yes. _

A deceitful voice whispers through his mind. 

He’d bring Thanos back if it was the only way.

But somehow, everything always seems to end except for him.

Tony doesn’t speak as he leads him through the compound. 

If this were any other time but now, if they were any other place but here, he’d let some sly word roll of his tongue, watch the other’s eyes snap to his, not quite friendship, and not quite lust, other eyes, shining brightly on them both.

But Strange and his time bending have vanished, and they’re here, and it’s now, and if he opened his mouth, he’s not sure what exactly what would come out, something raw and raging perched beneath his throat. Maybe if he started, he’d never stop. Maybe that would be better.

He should have gone back with T’Challa, listened to Shuri, looked for peace, but peace for him has always been a farce, and he’s never going to shed the steel that garrots him, so much is clear, the iron is inside of him forever, it withstands where the rest wisps away like dust. 

If he weren’t, if he were flesh, human, like he’d thought maybe he could believe himself to be, for a second, for a week, for four fucking months of his life, than there’d be tears now, tracking down his cheeks, as Stark pushes open a door at the end of a hallway that seems like it’d taken forever to reach. 

It’s a room left over from another life. A life Bucky has never seen, that he certainly hadn’t been part of as anything but a ghost. 

There’s a goddamn jacket slung over the back of a chair. A book tossed haphazard on the bed. Pictures of a team, whole, framed carefully on a desk. He tries not to, but training has taught him only how to see. 

The pieces of a life that was happy, for a breath. Real. Could he have fit himself in here, if he’d tried? 

The only thing that belies the illusion that… that the owner of all of these things, of this life interrupted, hadn’t just woken up in the morning and gone out for a run is a thick layer of dust that coats across dark wood. 

The strange scent of stagnation. 

But he’s not. Bucky, isn’t.  Not a person, not a self, maybe the soldier somewhere, maybe just fucking lost, like he’s always been, a compass less one heading, spinning and spinning and spinning. So there are no tears.

Instead.

Laughter, dark and biting, falls from his lips, maddened, maybe, maddened. 

Stark, who’d lapsed somewhere far, whose eyes are bright, glittering with too much water like a real fucking person snaps his head up to look at him. And it’s so, so, ridiculous that they’re here, both of them, that they’re both here. So ridiculous he can barely stand it, or maybe he can just barely stand. 

He’s changed his mind, all at once, he doesn’t want to be here, he doesn’t want to see this, doesn’t want to feel anything, the world seems to darken around them, it blurs the stupidly made bed, wrinkles removed, the obnoxiously kept birthday cards stacked on the shelf. 

A real life he hadn’t bothered to turn up for. 

The laughter is still tumbling out of him.

“Wanna share with the class, Barnes?” Tony sounds flat, maybe a little angry, maybe he just wants to be a little angry, and that’s fine, it’s almost relieving. Normal, simple, like everything hasn’t deteriorated around them while the rest of the world celebrates not yet being eviscerated. It must be nice, to experience that just once.

It’s tempting to ignore Stark, to pretend deafness is a side effect of being heartbroken, or losing your heart, or whatever the fuck it is that’s happening, to him, to  _ them. _ He knows to them. 

“Shoulda just fucking stayed here.” And the contempt is only aimed back at himself. 

Tony’s shoulders tense, and his back straightens. He stares at Bucky and his fingers twitch, and Bucky knows he’s thinking of pulling out his glasses, hiding himself away. But Stark doesn’t, he just watches him, rife pain, hollowed fury, and so he doesn’t run either, gives back all of his glassy anger, all that winter, all those shatters. It doesn’t matter if Stark sees, it’s hard to imagine anything mattering anymore. 

Tension runs suddenly electric, and Bucky wonders what they do here, fight or fuck or sob, all of it seems like too much work, but the current is intoxicating, sinks under his skin, into his bones. 

“Yeah.” Tony’s voice is leaden, every syllable hoarse. “Well, he didn’t.”

Which sets him off again, waves of hysteria, until Tony is closer, Tony is in his space, Tony’s fingers are wrapped around his shoulders, twisting into his shirt. 

“But you are.” 

He steps back and Tony steps forward, and he thinks maybe they’re both shaking.

“Am I?” He manages between gasps, when his back has hit the wall. Over Tony’s shoulder, his eyes land on a ridiculous pair of enormous sneakers sitting by the door, waiting, and he thinks about screaming again. 

A hand lands on his throat and reflex stills the noise, pushes him down into his skull, Tony presses him back him harder with it, forces his chin up, his hair falling away from his face. Their eyes meet again, lips pressing thin. 

“Yes.”

“You could just kill me instead.”

The words come without permission, without thought, and if he were still the person he maybe thought he really was five days ago, three days ago, two days and six hours and 53 minutes and 46 seconds ago, he’d apologize for it. For Stark’s broken half inhale, for the way his fingers dig. 

But this new person, this not Bucky, not James, not the soldier, not anything, knows it’s only true.

When the fingers release and the searing end of a punch comes instead, he knows he deserves it. 

“He loved you.” Tony hisses, like that’s all there is, and Bucky can hear,  _ he chose you _ , and he knows, known all along, really, but knows again with the throb of his cheek that he’s not the only one who's lost, who didn’t get enough time, who didn’t get any part of what they wanted in the end. 

It doesn’t help to know that.

Maybe it helps to know that. 

Probably it shows, because the fight drains away as quickly as it had settled, and Stark doesn’t touch him again, but stands in front of him. Close, so close, it’s too close and not close enough all at once.

_ It’s not Steve.  _

He knows he isn’t either, for Tony. But they both reach. 

He should tell Stark, should tell him that Steve thought about him every day, wanted him, missed him, _loved him_. But he can’t make the words work.  They stand there silent instead, breath rattling their bones, deceitful breathing, he can’t imagine doing it for another day, for another week, for another year, for who knows how long.

Anguish shivers through him, through the cold, phantom sensation of arms on his body, and there, around the laugher, the gasp of half breath, tears. 

He tries not to think of a sheepish half smile, the barest of kisses to his lips.

He doesn’t try not to cry.

Tony’s fingers card his hair gently away from his face, catch the track of a tear on his thumb.

“Okay.”

He whispers so faint its barely words, just sounds that catch against one another and make half formed promises, that he maybe he’ll mean. His gaze falls across his own face, sketched in soft pencil, in aching, anguished lines, laid gently across a shelf, fingers smudges of charcoal walked across its planes. 

“I’ll stay.” 

He promised. 

_Till the end of the line._


End file.
